The Truth About Vitamin D

Overview

Vitamins are the most indispensable nutrients for the augmentation of a human body. There is a large variety of vitamins in which each and every member has its prominent function to do in the body cells. Vitamin D is a type of vitamin, which is also known as calciferol that is highly important for the growth of cells in the body. Its main function is attached with the growth and development of bones. Although, the dietary substances, which could not be capably synthesized by the organism itself in their body, has been called as vitamins. Still Vitamin D is an exception in this series, as it can be synthesized in the body, when exposed in the sun.

Structure of vitamin D

There are numerous forms of vitamin D, but the vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 are two main forms of this supplement. Their scientific names are ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol, respectively. These chemical forms of the vitamin are known as secosteroids i.e. a kind off steroid that bears a broken steroid ring. Both of these vitamin forms are primarily distinguishable on the basis of their side chains. The side chain of vitamin D2 bear a double bond between carbon 22 and 23 along with the methyl group on carbon 24.

Sources of the vitamin

There are limited sources of vitamin D, but the most important source of the nutrient is sun. Actually, the surface of the human skin possesses a specific chemical compound called as ergosterol. This compound gets converted into vitamin D by the UV irradiation. As this process needs UV rays; thus, the chemical synthesis of vitamin D can be performed in sun only.

Features of Vitamin D

Vitamin D is exclusive in the entire series of vitamins for many specific properties such as-

It is the fat soluble substance; that’s why called as steroid.

Vitamin D; in spite of being present in some dietary sources, found from the sun in majority and it is highly recommended to human being to get the exposure of sun for some time to gain Vitamin D.

Deficiency of vitamin D can lead to a variety of health problems such as rickets, diabetes, weakness of bones, multiple sclerosis and cancer etc.

Importance of the vitamin

Vitamin D plays an important role to avoid many normal and serious diseases in the human body. The deficiency of the vitamin can leads to the condition of malnutrition badly in children and they can be caught by rickets disease. This diseases is associated with the weakness of bones and can also be fatal a lot to conclude as the death. Deficiency of vitamin D has its significant role to increase the mortality rate in children. Cancer, HIV, diabetes, influenza, cardiovascular diseases and osteomalcia are other health problems that are associated with the lack of vitamin D.

Sources of vitamin D

Cod liver oil, tuna fish, cat fish and eggs are the primary dietary sources that contain rich amount of vitamin D while the vegetarian people can rely on milk, curd and dairy products to get this nutrient.